Avoiding the perils of tram ticket abuse

The limitation inherent in any dictionary of faux amis is unavoidable; sometimes the difference in meaning between two similar-looking and/or similar-sounding words is neither suggestive nor interesting - it is, simply, contingent (aktuell and ordinar being cases in point). And, in such circumstances, all the lexicographer can do is to correct the misconceptions. But on frequent occasions, the corrections can be genuinely illuminating in that they bring into focus points of (mutually) revelatory contrast between two linguistic and cultural systems. Fred Bridgham is splendidly alive to this possibility; time and time again, his entries are models of lucid, thoughtful, witty commentary, sustained by the laudable aim of explaining the ways of the Germans to the English. Here he is in full cry on that most German of concepts, Bildung: "The German Bildungsburgertum finds itself most faithfully reflected in the career and works of Thomas Mann. Not to have read Der Zauberberg (1924), the story of a seven-year Bildungsreise (educational trip) which, ironically, gets no further than a Swiss sanatorium, is a serious Bildungslucke (gap in one's education), though like the modern Bildungsroman in general, the book is less concerned with its hero's assimilation into existing society than with a questioning of that society itself. Der zweite Bildungsweg offers a 'second chance' to gain an academic education at the local Volkshochschule (night school)." Of course, the word Bildung does not really belong in the category of faux amis. Rather, it is one of Bridgham's "key words" - like Beamte, Heimat, Mitteleuropa - which (rightly) figure in the compilation because of the cultural freight that they carry. Certain loaded terms simply cry out for interpretative mediation in an English context.

The upshot is a marvellously engaging book which is truly a delight to browse in. I noted very few gaps. (More might, perhaps, have been said, under the heading of Meister, about the social history of the guilds in Germany, more could have been made of the German relationship to nature. And what of German medicine, with its attachment to herbal remedies and to Kreislaufstorungen?) But the gaps are few and far between. Bridgham has provided us with a splendid dictionary of the culture that has given the world certain untranslatable terms (such as Angst, Festschrift, and Schadenfreude; perhaps they, too, should have been key terms?).

Above all, at one point in my reading of Bridgham's dictionary I was acutely aware of how helpful it would have been to me if his book had been available years ago; because he explains something that baffled me for excruciating hours (or was it perhaps only minutes?) I was in a German town, and had resolved to crack the tram system. I accordingly bought a ticket from a machine on the platform, only to discover that this action was not enough to confer legality on me as a passenger. I had, it seemed, from the plethora of notices that surrounded me, to entwerten the ticket. My problem was that I had done a degree in German, and, in consequence, I had read a little Nietzsche. I therefore found myself confronted by the problem of how, concretely, institutionally, to "devalue" the ticket in my sweaty hand. I tried to abuse the offending piece of paper. But it did not work. Finally I resorted (oh, the shame of it!) to empirical observation. All became clear. The ticket I had bought was not dated; it had to be cancelled (entwertet) with reference to a particular day and time. Ultimately, I coped; but I wish I had had Bridgham's delightful book to hand then.

Martin Swales is professor of German, University College London.